[Digital Dreamer]

When is anime considered anime and not a cartoon?
When is cartoon considered cartoon and not anime?

With the fact that ROBOTECH will be releasing The Shadow Chronicales this year. That I turn on the TV as see advertisement for Totally Spies. And you have Transformers cartoon which seems to be changing hands between Japan and America over the last 20 year. It does make me quetion where to put the drawn the line of were does anime and where cartoon begin.

It seems that west as finally gotten over this thing that Cartoon are just for kids. Mind you, i have to say that not all the american animated stuff on Adult Swim or Comedy Channel makes for quality view. However I think Joe Average TV Viewer is finally over the shock of mature themes, violence, nudity and even sex in animated format.

Now the next problem that i have been seeing as of lately is the amount of cartoons that seem to be influenced quite heavly by traditional anime styles. Total Spies is one of them. I have also been led to beleive that X-Men Evolution is another. Lately I have been hearing people say the same thing about Aeon Flux.

And then we have the Amercian Remakes. Now this is a rather big issue about this problem.
Firstly, this is nothing new. The yanks have been dubbing japanimation for nearly 30 years now. I am sure we all remember Speed Racer and StarBlazers. Now thankfully, the most that has happened with these shows is that the yanks just dubbed things over. And that was about it.

However we alos have shows like Battle Of The Planet, Robotech and Voltron and even Transformers where the yanks have taken a much greater creative hold on the product.

BATTLE OF THE PLANETS - Oringally this was the Gatchaman anime. However since Star Wars was the big at the time, the americans hadded this scenes of where we have talking robot giving out missions, plus the various space travels scene that never happened in the orginal japanese series.

ROBOTECH - I view both ROBOTECH and MACROSS as 2 different continuities.
Like they both start the same, but after while the both continuities got their own direction. Like a quick example for all those people that have seen both series is
Macross Time Line Year 2040 - the events of Macross Plus where YF-19 and YF-21 prototype competition is conducted at New Edwards Test Flight Center
Robotech Time Line Year 2040 - Earth forces have fallen to the Invid Invasion 9 years ago, and it only recenlty there is a growing resistance movement against the invid.

For more compairsons....
MACROSS TIME LINE
ROBOTECH TIME LINE
And now in 2006, the Robotech continuity finally continues on with The Shadow Chronicals.

ASTROBOY - Genndy Tartakovsky (PowerPuff Girls, Clone Wars, Dextors Lab, etc) is currently working on his own version of Osamu Tezuka's Tetsuwan Atomu.
Peronally I am not looking forward to it as I am not a fan of Genndy Tartakovsky's style of animation

VOLTRON - Most of the Voltron Series was just the usal dubbed over and chopped and changed parts to suit western tastes. However the americans did had another 16 or so episodes that were not in the orginal japanes series. And recently you had the Voltron 3 Deminsion.

And finally, Transformers - Rather questionable on whether or not we call this anime or not. Firstly, you have yanks that ripped off the various japanese toy companyies. And then after the first transformer's movie, the japanese seemed to have done their own thing with the series. Where as the popularityin the west died down to for the show. It was non until the late 90's where the yank disided to bring back the transformers product line. Only to later have the japanese take over from the americans with the cartoon / anime.


And then to make matter more interesting, we have the japenese that seem to be making their own version of western cartoons. Like there is a japanese version fo the Power Puff Girls. Plus as I there is what i have posted about the transformers.
And Kagaku Kyujotai Techno Voyager which is also the Thunderbirds 2086 anime.
You have AD Vision that seem to be working with various Japanese Studios for various projection. One of them is a 26 part animation based on FarScape.*
* Some thing that I hope never sees the light of day as FarScape really finished at Peace Keeper War MiniSeries and there is really not much more to tell.

So with all this, my question is this, where do I draw the line one what is a cartoon and what is anime?

Does it have to all (including production) be from Japan?
Or we can we safely say as long orginal series and concept is japanese, it still anime.
Or it is some thing in between?
Or it is simply down to simple art form (the big eyes) and slightly more mature content.
If the americans make there own adaption of a japanese anime ; Is it still considered anime?
And If the Japanese make there own adaption of a American Cartoon ; Is it considered anime?
Or is it some thing else?

[Rebel]

I suppose, I would say that at the very least ANYTHING from japan, no matter how badly dubbed, edited or renamed, is an anime. Of course all "anime" is is slang for animation.

So what your really asking is where's the line between good, and bad animation. I would probly say that any show that has a good plot, good characters, and is animated well for it's time constitutes a good "anime".

Due to the power of CG these days, I would say good animation or at least unique animation is a requirement and no longer just a bonus to a show. Along with this, I also put forth that good music, fitting music, or unique music, stuff that dosent sound like it's off a Gameboy(the old one) is also required.

Transformers, Totally Spies, Martin Mystery(the last two mind you are French) already have good animation(though the CG Transformers is iffy soemtimes). So, do they have good plots? Totally Spies is a rehash of Charlie's Angels. Martin Mystery is a rehash of classic shows like Scooby Doo. And Transformers is about as immortal as Gundam(and about as Japanese).

None of them have good plots, they're all leftovers or remakes of classic cartoons everyone already loves. They seem good because we love that plot already. But they're really not good because we only like them for the plot they're based on, not on their own merit.

The music in these shows is definately not memorable. In fact I dont recall much music aside from remixes of the intro theme.

So, these shows, animes made outside of japan and transformers, a cartoon turned into an anime(yes, the original was made in the US). already fail at music and plot, their characters are nifty and entertaining to say the least, and their animation is only up to par, but not something to shout about. The Animation of the latter two transformers series was rather depressing.

So in the end, I think "anime" is just a word people attach to shows form japan, be them good or bad. And you really shouldnt use it as a title to eb awarded. IMO, it's all animation, lets just give them the labels of "good" or "bad" on their own merit.

btw: your one of the first people I've seen using the word "yank" or "yanks" I'd always assumed it was an insult.

[Maverick]

Well, I'm not a big anime fan nor I watched lots of anime shows, so I simply put the line in the drawing style, I don't check the sources, I see the drawing work and I say this is anime, this is a cartoon. Are there any anime style shows made from somewhere else than Japan anyway?

[Moelman]

I don't know whether this is made in Japan or not, but a cartoonish-show with anime qualities is teen titans. The drawing style is Japanese but the show seems like any other cartoon. If I had to guess I'd say it was made in the US so I'd call it a cartoon.

Overall I'd say anything made in Japan is an anime, but you can be the judge on the quality of it.

[InsaneSith]

Teen Titans is American/Canadian. Martin Mystery, Totally Spies are french.

Any animation from Japan is anime, as is any from France (if you want to get technical *nods to lynk*)

Art style has nothing to do with it, look at several classic anime series and compare them to new ones. They look nothing alike, in style. They're still anime though. Aeon Flux is not anime, it's done by a Chinese-American. It's a cartoon.

Some people also seem to place anime on a higher level than cartoons, this is bullshit.
Anime is merely a flavour of cartoon.

[Shannon]

Since "anime" is a term that the Japanese use to refer to foreign and domestic animation... it's basically known to be exclusively Japanese in the English-speaking world. So if it's from Japan, I'd say it's anime. Otherwise, no, it's not anime.

[Rebel]

Since "anime" is a term that the Japanese use to refer to foreign and domestic animation... it's basically known to be exclusively Japanese in the English-speaking world. So if it's from Japan, I'd say it's anime. Otherwise, no, it's not anime.

but if they use it to apply to foreign shows that reach their shores, then isnt that anime as well? Thats why I say using "anime" which is just slang for animation to describe a certian genre is incorrect.

lets go back to the days of Japanimation!

[MadMax]

Anything from Japan is anime. Anything outside of Japan is not. That's what I live by.

I don't really care what you call it as long as the word "anime" is pronounced correctly. I've heard the worst pronunciation of it.

[spectre]

Well to say it's not a cartoon might be false, but I'd be tempted to call it significantly different from mainstream american/canadian/whatever outside of japan cartoon. One of the things I noticed is that anime is in a lot of cases just like a western live-action TV show, but in animated format.

What I mean is that normally you don't see a lot of standard American cartoons in the same vein as Love Hina (that whole romatic comedy thing), and definitely nothing like NGE or RahXephon. I'm sure there are exceptions on all sides but it seems to me that there is a significant divide between the two. In fact the only cartoons that I watched that even have continuing stories are either franchises from other media (comic books or movies), or borrow heavily from japanimation anyways -- although again there are always exceptions, and I could be mistaken. In that sense I guess you could place anime and "regular" cartoons in different categories entirely.

[Shannon]

but if they use it to apply to foreign shows that reach their shores, then isnt that anime as well? Thats why I say using "anime" which is just slang for animation to describe a certian genre is incorrect.

lets go back to the days of Japanimation!

Well, as English doesn't "borrow" words from Japanese as it does from languages such as French or Latin (actually, I can't think of one instance where a transliterated Japanese word is listed in Webster), it's more about taking the actual concept of something that's Japanese ("anime") and associating it with Japanese animation.... that is, rather than taking its contextual meaning and applying it to other things. ... Does that make any sense??

But what I'm getting at is not everything in an "anime" style is anime, and not every comic in a Japanese style is "manga". It's very much based on where it comes from. For example... Myself being Korean, I'm espeically sensitive about stuff like "All Asian people look the same," "All Asian people speak the same language," etc. etc. So when someone confuses manga with manhwa, they just sound plain ignorant. It's just bad vibes... and it's not really accurate either

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhwa
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manga

I dunno, maybe that's a helpful juxtaposition. But I should definitely mention this is just my personal opinion and I'm okay with anyone calling manhwa manga or manga comics or whatever

[MadMax]

Our German animation mag Animania once featured an article about manhwa, explaining all the differences and similarities. Actually it got a lot of positive response from the readers for that, so it seems that fans understand what it's about

[Lynk Former]

Saying "anime" is like an in the group kinda thing between Japanese animation fans, otherwise, to be safe and make sure "outsiders" understand you, you call it Japanese Animation, at least that's what I go by, it seems to work XD

But anywayz, yeah there are a lot of confusing half breeds and wierd shows around which do confuse a lotta people

[The Wolf]

Cartoons and anime are both forms of animation, but the Japanese call it anime and the Western world calls theirs cartoons. In Japan, you would hardly hear anyone call anime cartoons. And in Cantonese/Chinese, we call anime 'Yup Bune Car Tong Pin'(it should sound something like that), which translates to cartoons from Japan. So maybe the difference is in the country.